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They bad-mouth you to work colleagues behind your back; they angrily demand the impossible from everyone but themselves; they make unwanted comments about your attire.
At some point in our careers, most of us have come across someone known as a "toxic worker," a colleague or boss whose abrasive style or devious actions can make the workday utterly miserable. Such people hurt morale, stoke conflict in the office, and harm a company's reputation.
But toxic workers aren't just annoying or unpleasant to be around; they cost firms significantly more money than most of them even realize. According to a new Harvard Business School (HBS) paper, toxic workers are so damaging to the bottom line that avoiding them or rooting them out delivers twice the value to a company that hiring a superstar performer does.
While a top 1 percent worker might return $5,303 in cost savings to a company through increased output, avoiding a toxic hire will net an estimated $12,489, the study said. That figure does not include savings from sidestepping litigation, regulatory penalties, or decreased productivity as a result of low morale.
On the other hand, toxic co-workers are useful as foils come bonus time: "Hey, at least I'm not as bad as that guy..."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday December 03 2015, @06:52PM
I've dealt with this firsthand many times. Any organization's worst nightmare is a toxic co-worker in one or more protected categories. Black, bipolar, retarded, adopted as a kid, and missing a foot?
Other than their punching somebody in the face there's nothing that can get them removed from the organization. The guy I mentioned above (yes, it's a true story) was sent to the turkey farm (that one department where all fuckups get transferred until they leave or retire, I actually learned the phrase "turkey farm" from somebody here) before I was hired. Well, turns out the turkey farm actually needed new employees to do the job the turkey farm actually did, so I was hired unknowingly directly into the turkey farm with Black Retard as my boss. After going home angry on a daily basis dealing with Black Retard's abusive behavior, I lead a coup to overthrow him (obviously a dickhead like that doesn't have many coworkers as allies) and after over a year involving bombarding HR and consultants being called in, Black Retard was given a lateral movement where he got to be paid to sit around all day and do jack shit.
I guess you could call it a win-win situation, even though that guy probably cost the company a total of tens of millions in salary and lost productivity.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @08:44PM
so I was hired unknowingly directly into the turkey farm
Hahaha... Oh WOW... That's cute that you believe that!
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 03 2015, @08:47PM
You ended up in the turkey farm. The "Black Retard," didn't.
I'm sure he was the problem....
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday December 03 2015, @09:33PM
To reply to both you and the other goddamn idiot above you - I was hired directly into the turkey-farm because that was the position and department advertised, and there was demand for technicians who performed that specific function. It's not like they baited and switched me and said, "well, we think you're a better fit for another department" and made me compromise. Nor was I transferred, I spent my entire tenure in the department and there were no opportunities for advancement for anybody in the company, much less lil' ol' me.
If you're hired as a repair technician, as an example, to work in the repair department, is it obvious from the job title and department alone that the company considers the repair department the turkey-farm? Maybe they did actually need another person to help fix angry customers' shit and production couldn't take a hit giving a costly-to-train man to repair.
There were, however, plenty of other people who were transferred into the hypothetical repair department because they had fucked up somewhere else. Black Retard was previously in a more prestigious customer-facing department but was transferred to the turkey-farm before I was hired, after he had pissed off too many already-angry customers. Oh, and I'd like to add that the person who hired Black Retard in the first place was his college buddy and former roommate.
As another poster pointed out lower down, one of the surest ways to detect a toxic employee is if they were blatantly unqualified and hired as a result of nepotism.
So I challenge you or anybody else to answer this question -- are there any departments common to most companies (except the "diversity" department, which is obvious anywhere) which could be assumed to be turkey-farms? Or do you believe what I do, which is that which department is the turkey farm depends the culture and history of that particular organization?
In a super-niche industry and with only 2 generic reviews, Glassdoor isn't much help, is it?
(Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 03 2015, @10:17PM
are there any departments common to most companies (except the "diversity" department, which is obvious anywhere) which could be assumed to be turkey-farms?
Yes! Let me know which department you work for now and I'll tell you where the turkey farm is.
(Score: 3, Funny) by q.kontinuum on Friday December 04 2015, @12:14AM
Well, they sure know a natural when they see one...
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2015, @04:06PM
Not everyone that lands in these places is there because they are incompetent. The screw ups are put there because they can not cause much more damage there. I worked at a place like that. Once that division was bought out? The parent company cleaned house to make it look more profitable. All that was left was people who could do stuff. The stranglers? We got rid of them in under a year.
The screwups were easy to spot. They usually were transferred in. The rest were hired in to actually do the work.
It was always 'interesting'. "why is he here shouldnt he be some VP somewhere?" "oh yeah he got caught doing ..." almost every time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Thursday December 03 2015, @11:20PM
Any organization's worst nightmare is a toxic co-worker in one or more protected categories.
Only because there's no such thing as a manager with balls. You ARE allowed to fire people you know. At some point defending yourself from a POSSIBLE lawsuit (which is not all that hard if you have documented evidence that the guy is fucking up business in more ways than one) is cheaper than keeping him on. Lawyers aren't all that expensive, especially if they already work for the company. You can't fire someone for being black or retarded but you certainly CAN fire someone for being an ass, not doing their job, talking shit and being abusive to other employees, etc.